Followup to Yesterday's Update (Patreon)

Okay, so I think I need to clear up a few things following yesterday's update! 

AI

First, I want to address the issue of AI covers/illustrations. I know that some of you are disappointed in the change; I understand the whole issue surrounding AI artwork and the questionable ethics. And believe me when I say that I do often feel guilt when using AI (especially for profit), and I do feel like a hypocrite, but it's something that I battled with for a long time and I had to make decisions that were in my own best interest.

I hate to use the term 'survival', but in a big way, adopting AI artwork into my workflow has been a survival decision. If you've followed me for a long time, you know that Amazon, while great in many ways, doesn't exactly prioritize authors who self-publish; it prioritizes the shoppers, as a corporation maybe should. 

I've been publishing for almost 11 years now (9 years of it being my full-time job and only source of income). In that time, I've seen many changes to the playing field and I've watched the industry evolve. When I started, self-publishing was a sort of fringe thing that only a few weirdos were able to pull off; now, it's basically standard practise. 

I was there when they introduced book borrowing on Amazon (Kindle Unlimited 1.0), and I watched websites like AllRomanceEBooks and Smashwords essentially removed from existence (yes, I know they still exist, but now that's where authors go to die). We all used to publish to AllRomance, Smashwords, Google Play, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, and a few other platforms with every release, which meant formatting different documents for each site (they all had different formatting requirements). After KU was introduced, Amazon became the monopoly of E-book publishing; they even bought out CreateSpace and took the monopoly on self-published paperbacks as well. 

During this time, I watched as more than half of my friends struggled to adapt before calling it quits. Some of them (who were making very good money in pre-KU days) had to sell their homes. One prominent erotica publisher (and friend of mine) was even forced to take a minimum wage job at a call centre. KU changed the whole game.

And then a year later, it happened again, when Amazon overhauled the KU system and changed it from getting $2 per book borrow, to $0.01 per page read. For many, this was revolutionary (myself included). My books have always been longer than the average erotica story, so I went from making almost nothing to a decent income. But for many--especially those who wrote super short erotica--it was a death sentence. They went from making $2 per book borrow to about $0.20. Their income was slashed by 90%, and again, many were forced to quit because they simply couldn't adapt to writing longer content. 

This was when many self-publishers moved to writing novel-length romance. A friend of mine, Sabrina Paige, became a literal overnight millionaire with her books (Prick reached #1 on Amazon). For her, it was heaven, and just a year later, she retired in her thirties with literal millions. She adapted to the new landscape and succeeded. Meanwhile, authors like Gregor Daniels and John Dylena just couldn't write more than they were used to writing: 20-40 page erotica shorts, and they really struggled. John left publishing for a long, long time, and I know that he went through a very, very rough time in his life, having thought publishing was going to be his forever career. 

Some authors adapted in other ways, finding ways to game the KU system--tricking the programming into giving them more page reads. They would set the 'start point' of their eBooks to the last page of the book, so that as soon as someone opened the book, KU would register 100+ page reads instantly. Many started making 'choose your own adventure' books, where the first link would skip you right to the end, giving them 100% of a book's page reads. This was also when authors started releasing massive 50+ book mega bundles, and they would put the Table of Contents at the end of the book, so that when someone wanted to find a specific book or chapter, the author would get 2,000+ page reads.

In 2018, Amazon decided to change the system again to end the black-hat tactics, and once again, I saw titans fall and crumble into oblivion. One author, who averaged over a million dollars in sales per year, was forced to sell his new home and his cars. He dropped down to making less than $30,000 per year, and the financial stress broke up his marriage. Yes, he was using every black-hat tactic in the book, so he probably never deserved the riches to begin with... but it was scary to watch what we called the 'smutpocalypse'. Basically, Amazon just found a way to only count pages that readers actually flipped to and spent more than a few seconds on. So now, the page read system was much more accurate to what people were reading. 

This change, for me, was a huge blow and cut my own sales in half, because most of my money came from bundles. When someone skipped halfway through a book to read a specific book, I would get a few hundred page reads. Suddenly, overnight, I was only getting what people actually read. Yes, it was the way it should have been, but it was still a huge shock, and I was forced to make some big life changes, and I thought about quitting like so many others were doing. Also, they dropped the $/page from $0.01 to $0.00488 per page. So now, not only were we losing out on those big bundle bumps from people jumping across stories, but the actual page read was sliced by more than half.

More people quit. At the time, my stories were 12,000 words long. This was when I started writing 22,000 word stories (on average). I went from writing 6 hours per day to about 10. I stopped taking weekends off. I wrote nonstop for about 18 months and managed to stabilize my income, but I suffered some serious burnout.  I believe this was around the time that I created this Patreon page. 

At the end of 2020 came the next smutpocolypse, with Amazon adding in a new line of coding to their search algorithm, which made it so that erotica would not appear in a user's search results unless that person had their SafeSearch turned off. And while this sounds like a good practise to protect kids... nobody knew how to toggle SafeSearch on and off. It was (and still is) a hidden feature that requires a good deal of searching through hidden settings to find. Amazon will toggle it on and off automatically depending on a user's buying habits--but this slashed visibility so much that more authors lost their income and went away. 

And since that change, they've continued to work towards cleaning up their search results. Every few months, they make updates that make erotic content more hidden, harder to find, harder to sell. A few other authors (who I won't name, because it's not my place) who sell trans romance and erotica, are now talking about quitting. We have a private Discord with 22 authors in it, and the talk right now is about finding new work. Some were never able to adapt to writing longer content and have been hanging onto threads for years. Others have been battling the Amazon censors to no avail. One author, who has often been prominent in the top 100 charts, sent me a message telling me that she will be publishing her final book next week. 

No, this is not a woe-is-me post, because I'm actually doing okay. For me, writing long stories is more natural. I don't mind writing a 30,000 tale each week. In fact, I've been writing, on average, 30,000 words per week for about the past eight or nine years. I won't be able to build up as much of a publishing buffer, but that's a small price to pay for survival. Furthermore, I have this Patreon page, which helps tremendously, and I have Audible, which I started at the end of last year. 

Okay, so why am I telling you this whole long story--and what does it have to do with AI? 

Around August 2022, Jessie Ash began publishing AI "graphic novels". She was taking super-short erotic stories and generating AI images to make about 30-50 panels. At first, these would occasionally pop into the trans romance top 100, and nobody thought much about them. But then, as the AI art generation got better, and she published more stories, they popped up more and more and more. In February 2023, I counted how many stories she had on the top 100: 18, including three in the top 10. 

Then, another author started publishing AI comics into trans romance, and those started to grace the top 100. By the end of February, I counted 24 AI-generated books in the top 100. 

It was around this time that another author (I won't name them out of respect) told me in private that they had started using something called Chat GPT to write their books. They would enter in a few prompts and Chat GPT would write a 30,000 word manuscript for them. They were producing a book per day.

In March, another author on our Discord admitted to me that they were doing the same. Now, I can name four authors who exclusively 'write' using Chat GPT. (I've played around with it and have no idea how they get it to make prose; for me, it only produced rubbish cardboard LOL). Am I mad at these authors? A little bit. Can I blame them? Not really, because of that word I used earlier: survival. The authors I'm talking about (who, again, I won't name), were on the brink of defeat. Earlier, in easier publishing times, they were making a living, and now they're struggling. Chat GPT has been a lifeline for them, and they've figured out a way to use it to produce... well, the books are well reviewed, for what it's worth... 

And having played around with Chat GPT (out of nothing but pure curiosity), I can already tell what is GPT and what was written by a human. Now, I often read stories published by other authors--particularly new authors that I see popping up in the charts. Well, over the past few months, I've seen a TON of very obvious Chat GPT. It's disheartening, but I would say 30% of the top 100 trans romance on Amazon was produced, at least 80% of its content, by Chat GPT. 

I don't consider other authors as my 'competition'. That said, there are only 100 slots on the top 100 chart, and that's where a solid chunk of new readers find our books. So, speaking realistically, the other authors ARE my competition. THAT SAID, I would never try to take down another author or disgrace them, unless, of course, they are stealing my content (which happened recently as well--I'll get to that). 

While I'm not a fiercely competitive author, many others are. An author named 'Urban' was caught a while back stealing my content (and not just any content, but my best-selling content) and publishing it as her own. She sent me an apology and promised she wouldn't do it again... but she also blocked me from being able to see her social media pages, so unless I create new accounts, I can't actually see if she's truthful (she also stole a DL Savage story). Her stealing my story created trouble for me, because Amazon's robots found her post on her website, sharing part of the story, and assumed that I was the one plagiarizing, so they banned that book from Amazon. It's still banned; Amazon does not un-ban books, even if you win an appeal (which I did). 

Then, around September 2022, a prominent pirating website hacked my Patreon and posted every story I've ever posted here for free, to thousands of users. I had book previews posted here for books on Amazon. Amazon detected those previews, assumed I was plagiarizing, and locked out my account. I thought, for weeks, that my publishing days were over. 

But back to the topic of competitiveness. In January, another author (presumably), decided to report not one, but 400 of my books to Amazon (filing individual reports for each), claiming that they were wrongly categorized, that they weren't about trans, that they weren't romance. Amazon removed 400 of my books from trans romance and put them into 'general erotica'. 

Now, this was a big, big problem, because anything posted in erotica will not show up in 'also bought' sections on product pages. So, overnight, I was almost entirely wiped from 'also bought' sections. I had to spend a whole week appealing one book at a time (I only had the energy to do about 100). I got many of my books back into romance. 

Then came the models: the models from the stock photo websites. Amazon began blocking books left and right, telling me that my account would be banned if I kept posting cover artwork that I didn't have the rights to. Well, I bought each stock photo that I've ever used, so this was perplexing. It turned out, many of these models on the stock photo websites never knew that the photographers were selling their photos. Photographers aren't required to post proof that they have model releases when they publish to stock photo websites--they just tick a box: "Yes, I have the rights". Model after model complained to Amazon, demanding my books be removed, so Amazon removed them--and kept them removed even after I provided the licenses. I even received a death threat in the form of an email from a model who I'd used on a cover. 

My friend, Sabrina Paige, told me to stop using stock photos, and to start hiring my own models and taking my own pictures (or hiring a photographer and a model). That's what she would do for her books... Well, it's easier said than done when you publish a book each week. She pointed me to a website where you buy stock photos that are 'one use only' photos, as in, once someone buys it, nobody else can buy it. Each photo was $800, and that's more than most of my books even earn. 

Okay--I can tell that I'm boring you, so I'll get back to why this has anything to do with AI artwork. 

With all of the blows that I suffered between August 2022 and April 2023, I knew that I needed to adapt to the changing landscape, or pitter away. Sales were dropping, my BSR (best selling rank) was dropping. And with the model complaints that kept rolling in, my Amazon account was in danger of being terminated permanently. 

Scared of buying another stock photo of an angry model, I bought a stock photo of a 3D rendered girl (from the same site I got the rest of my photos). I published the bundle, ENHANCED, with this photo, expecting it to be a flop. The book ended up being my best-seller for months straight. I then learned that the photo that I bought off that site was AI-generated. Of course, I felt a conflicted about this, as I've always been more-or-less anti-AI, knowing artists personally who have lost their livelihoods to AI. 

Then came the Girly Guides that I made with Lilly Lustwood. We needed lots of photos, and there was no way that I was going to take the risk with stock models. So, hesitantly, I agreed to use AI models instead. Again, I was conflicted, but the Girly Guides were my attempt at trying to remain competitive, to create new content that would help to lift up my bottomline. 

Again, the Girly Guides did so well that I was left feeling conflicted. 

And then came ANOTHER model complaint about a cover that was one of my better selling books. Frustrated, for my next release, I used an AI model. That book, like the last two books with AI cover models, did very well for me. So I decided to swallow my pride and leave the $300 worth of unused stock photo credits behind. I had a month subscription to an AI service that wasn't yet expired (from making Girly Guide), so I made my next few covers with those--and they all performed better than any book released in the past two years. 

Another model complaint came in, and that was the final straw. I started the process of changing all of the covers. 

"Well, Nikki, what about the illustrations in your books?" you ask. 

It was another experiment, trying to adapt to a changing market. Jessie Ash was totally dominating the top 100 charts with her AI-generated books, so I decided to put pictures in a few of my books as a sort of tongue-in-cheek "I can do it too, Jessie!" sort of move. Those books shot up higher in the ranks than anything I've published in years, and it was a bit of a reality check: these days, people consume content differently than they used to. People seem to really like the 'illustrations'. The illustrations have helped me to find a new audience that I didn't have before, and that lifted up my floundering sales. 

I've come to realize that adapting sometimes means swallowing your pride. Now, almost a quarter of the top 100 trans romance books contain illustrations. Every week, more authors are switching to using AI models because stock models have been such a hassle (and buying stock photos adds up). I could tell that this AI artwork trend is going to be the new norm within the next 18 months. Many of the authors who choose not to adapt will probably fizzle away--just like they did after all of the last big changes. Believe me, because it's already happening. A prominent author of trans fiction is publishing her final book next week.

Amazon counts 1,200 characters as a 'page' when it calculates how many pages are in a book--or one image. That's 1,200 characters to earn $0.004 per reader--or approximately 250 words, which takes about 20 minutes to write for the average professional writer. To generate one AI image takes no more than a couple of minutes. Adding 30-50 illustrations into a book takes me about 90 minutes, and increases the value of a full book read by about $0.30. 

That's a big difference, and it's been the difference that I've desperately needed to stay afloat. I know a few of you are disappointed in me for using AI, and I totally understand, but I have to value my survival above everything else. 

Fan Messages

A few of you have taken my new stance on fan messages a bit personally, and I understand why you might be upset. I'm sorry, but my schedule is very demanding--more so than ever before. A few of you asked why I can't just send shorter messages, and I promise that I will try to keep in touch as best I can, but I have to prioritize my working time and my personal time. I have very little personal time these days, and I understand that a short message takes only a few minutes to write, but a few minutes per person is still the bulk of the little free time that I have. I'm trying my best to avoid burnout, and that means spending as much time away from the computer as I can justify. 

I also would like to quickly say that I'm sorry if I misled anyone into thinking that we were in a relationship; this was definitely not my intention and had I known that you felt this way, I would have certainly said something sooner to make it clear. I consider you all my friends--but we are not in a relationship. I'm a very chatty person, and this has been an issue in the past: where my chatty nature gives people the wrong impression. 

Sissy School

I got a number of messages over the past 24 hours about the future of Sissy School--some of you are concerned about comments that I made about required shaving and owning outfits. 

Sissy School will be 'work at your own pace' when it's ready to be relaunched. If you really don't want to shave your beard, legs, armpits, etc--I'm not going to force you to do it. If you would like to skip the assignments that involve wearing female clothes, you can do that too... though I just have to say it bluntly: I'm not really sure what exactly you plan to get out of it. I consider myself a relatively progressive chick, but in my world, girls don't have beards. Is that PC to say? 

Maybe, for you, it's just role-playing, fantasy, whatever. But I will ask (and I'm not trying to sound like a bitch) that you please not message me asking if it's okay to do Sissy School without dressing up or shaving. 

I do understand that, for some of you, it's a secret thing that you keep from your spouses; I'm not going to judge you for that, but the reality is that you won't ever feel girly without panties, without lingerie, without skirts and dresses, without makeup--and you won't feel girly with a beard. There are plenty of books out there about being feminine that basically say 'anything can be feminine'. The reason we made the Girly Guides, is because there really aren't any books that are blunt, that say "Shave your crotch and put on pink." That's the philosophy that I have with feminization and I'm not going to change that out of the convenience of being accommodating. 

Furthermore, part of the new Sissy School program will involve a level of sharing. You need feedback to grow, and flaunting your sexuality is a big part of being a girly girl. I understand that many of you are uncomfortable with this; it's not going to be a requirement, but you aren't going to get the full experience or the complete takeaway without following all of the assignments.